<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Help Me Find a Way Back to Shore by DjDangerLove</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30126501">Help Me Find a Way Back to Shore</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DjDangerLove/pseuds/DjDangerLove'>DjDangerLove</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Tarlos March Madness [19]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>9-1-1: Lone Star (TV 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Grief, M/M, References to Past Drug Use, implications of suicidal tendencies but nothing explicitly mentioned or done</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 02:34:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,062</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30126501</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DjDangerLove/pseuds/DjDangerLove</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“They’re going to be okay, baby,” Carlos assures unfairly, because he can’t know that for sure and because the lie shouldn’t start to ease the panic coursing through him like it does. “They’re going to be fine.”</p>
<p>Or: TK dealing with the Ryders' accident</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Carlos Reyes/TK Strand</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Tarlos March Madness [19]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2189232</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>105</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Help Me Find a Way Back to Shore</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For anon who requested TK finding out about the Ryders' accident. </p>
<p>There is a reference to flowers that appear in my other fic <em>Planting Rash Decisions</em>. If you haven't read it, TK plants Cape Plumbago in the backyard as a way to deal with the grief he felt at losing his grandmother. </p>
<p>Tarlos March Madness #19 of 31</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There comes a time in every person’s life where they feel helpless, like a glass bottle out at sea carried by the momentum of the waves until it gives in to the strength beating it down into fine pieces and settling at the bottom of the ocean. To an addict, this feeling can lead to the high of their life, the kind they never come down from. To a recovering one, it can lead to lost chips and saving graces. To TK Strand, it can lead to all three.</p>
<p>The Cape Plumbago petals brush up against the fingertips that have nourished them for weeks on end just to watch them grow. A heavy breeze beats at them, but they bend to will of it looking no worse for wear and the unfairness of it has TK curling his hand around a group of them just to crush them out of spite. When he releases his fist, the petals are creased and crushed beyond repair, dying in his hand like everything else he touches. </p>
<p>He yanks the petals from the stem, sending the remnants of past grief to be lost in the breeze as a new one takes its place on bare branches. Breathing heavy against a wave of tears that threaten to control him once let loose, TK grabs another handful of the flowers he planted when his grandmother died and rips them from a nourished life, feeling satisfied at their detachment.<br/>

So satisfied that he keeps doing it over and over and over again until someone grabs onto his hands, trying to prevent him from destroying anything else in his wake but by now he knows that it’s impossible. Knows that nothing is safe, nothing is permanent. Nothing stays the same. </p>
<p>“TK! Baby! Look at me.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to be forgiven for things that he felt in his heart was right. He reaches for the remaining Cape Plumbago, the few bushels left clinging to stems with a desperate hope TK lost with one phone call. </p>
<p>Carlos. Calm and steady, and too clean for people like TK that can stain even the dirtiest things. Carlos wraps his hands around TK’s wrists and pulls him away to stop him from destroying what’s left of the flowers, pulls him into an embrace that keeps him from who he really is.</p>
<p>“TK. Listen to me,” Carlos says, mouth right up against his ear as he hugs him hard enough to hurt. “You gotta listen to me.”</p>
<p>TK doesn’t know why he should even if he does fist the back of Carlos’ shirt between white knuckles like he’ll never let go. </p>
<p>“They’re going to be okay, baby,” Carlos assures unfairly, because he can’t know that for sure and because the lie shouldn’t start to ease the panic coursing through him like it does. “They’re going to be fine.”</p>
<p>“You don’t know that. The doctors said-“</p>
<p>“Said that they’re critical, but stable,” Carlos reminds him as if he forgot. Maybe he did. “Please, don’t give up on them.”</p>
<p>It cuts him across the heart, like it was meant to, and he buries the pain of it by pressing his tearstained face into Carlos’ shoulder. He wants to blame it on the concussion, wants to say that he gave up on them because of things out of his control, but the lies won’t manifest in front of the person he swore to be honest with. </p>
<p>“Everybody leaves.”</p>
<p>Carlos hugs him tighter as if it’ll prove otherwise. In case it doesn’t, he whispers, “They do if you never let them come back.”</p>
<p>The thought of losing them clean has broken him down to this, but the thought of waiting around to know for sure feels unsurvivable. “I just want them to be okay. I need them to be okay, right here, right now.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Carlos rubs his back, kisses the uninjured side of his head. “But they also need you to be okay, you get that? They love you. I love you. And if you’re not okay, then none of us will be regardless of what happens.”</p>
<p>TK doesn’t know what to say to that, doesn’t know where their love fits inside his chest filled with self-deprecation. He thinks maybe this kind of love doesn’t go there at all. Maybe it’s supposed to lay over him like the warmth radiating off Carlos when he hugs him or how Judd’s large hand covers the entirety of his head when he ruffles his hair at the end of a joke or attaboy. </p>
<p>“We’re all going to get through this together. It might be hard, really hard even, but it’s gotta be easier than this, right? As long as we bear it together?” </p>
<p>“I can’t do it without you,” TK admits, holding onto Carlos tighter. “I can’t.”</p>
<p>“You won’t,” Carlos swears, voice steady and sure and all the things TK feels he will never be himself. “You’ll never have to.”</p>
<p>He wants to say the same, wants to assure Carlos that he’ll always be here, but he still feels like a glass bottle out at sea. Except maybe he’s bobbing at the shore, susceptible to the changing of tides. But whether he lands on shore now or drifts out to sea forever, one thing will always be true. </p>
<p>“I love you,” TK says, because he needs him to know. “I love you more than anything.”</p>
<p>Carlos hugs him tight as if he knows why he says it, kisses him because he’s going to do everything he can to make sure the tides don’t carry him away. “I love you so much, baby. They’ll be okay. We all will.”</p>
<p>TK knows there comes a time in every person’s life where they feel helpless, like a glass bottle out at sea carried by the momentum of the waves until it gives in to the strength beating it down into fine pieces and settling at the bottom of the ocean. To an addict, this feeling can lead to the high of their life, the kind they never come down from. To a recovering one, it can lead to lost chips and saving graces. To TK, it can lead to all three.</p>
<p>But maybe, just maybe, this time it won’t. Maybe he’ll find his way back to shore with broken pieces held together with love, hope, and all of his family.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>